Remember when Hillary Clinton assured America she would accept the outcome of the 2016 election no matter what?
I do.
That promise, which she made only because Donald Trump wouldn’t, was one that unequivocally meant she would not call for any recounts, that she would not call on surrogates and supporters (like Barack Obama) to make reckless allegations that Russian cyber attacks played a role in the outcome and she would not be a party to denigrating the integrity and sanctity of the election process.
Of course, we all know what that promise was worth.
It’s worth noting that the recounts she participated in resulted in Hillary Clinton losing more votes than she had originally – probably due to catching a tiny proportion of the voter fraud she and her party and campaign systematically engaged in as a matter of course.
Now that it’s all official, and, barring some unforeseen circumstances, Donald Trump will be sworn in as president one month from today, let me make two predictions for 2017:
- As we saw after the election of 2000, there were more challenges made to the constitutionality of the Electoral College than America had seen in the previous 211 years of American presidential election history. Next year, it will be worse. The propagandists of the left, the Democratic Party and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself) will make the case that the Electoral College is “anti-democratic.” There will be a major push for direct elections of the president. (More on that later.)
- The same forces as noted above will conduct a well-funded war on voter integrity – meaning a propaganda war on the idea that voters should actually prove with a document at the polls, like a driver’s license, that they are eligible and duly registered citizens to participate in the election. (More on that later.)
Yet, the real lesson of the 2016 presidential election is that the Electoral College is that it worked exactly the way it was supposed to work – saving us from a situation in which the largest state in the country would have dictated to the vast majority of the states who would be elected.
In case you missed it, all of the margin of Hillary Clinton’s popular vote edge over Donald Trump was a result of California’s lack of political and ideological diversity.
If you take California out of the equation, Donald Trump won the popular vote by 1.4 million votes.
California, for all intents and purposes, has become a one-party totalitarian state. Clinton took 61 percent of the vote there in 2016 – a significantly higher percent than Barack Obama got in 2012. And, with the state’s embrace of illegal immigration, rampant voter fraud and widespread flight by long-time citizens and businesses, it will get continually worse.
You think I’m exaggerating? Think about this. In the only U.S. Senate race in California in 2016, it was a contest between two Democrats. No Republican even bothered to run. Similarly, six districts had no Republicans bothering to run. No Republicans bothered to contend 16 state assembly seats. No Republicans ran for nine congressional seats.
I tell you this as a California refugee myself. I lived there for 20 years. I saw California go off the cliff – politically, culturally, economically. I entered a California that seemed like the Garden of Eden in 1979, and I exited in a desperate panic in 1999. I’ve never looked back.
In 2016, California is the exception that proves the virtue of the Electoral College. Without it, voting Americans in other states would have little or nothing to say about who becomes president of their nation. The tail of California would be wagging the dog of America.
As it is, California remains the biggest Electoral College prize – 55 votes. Throw the national polls out the window. They are meaningless as long as California remains a one-party state with so little ideological and political diversity. Perhaps it should be broken up. It’s too big and too broken.
But the Electoral College is working just like it was supposed to work because America is comprised of 50 sovereign states. It’s the same logic that gave each state two senators and House delegations based on population. There’s a balance in America’s constitutional system – and it has proven its merits more than once.
It’s hard changing the Electoral College, because it would require a constitutional amendment or a constitutional convention. In either case, it requires the support of three-fourths of the states. Let me put it bluntly: As long as California remains in the union, the other states would be crazy to tamper with the Electoral College. It’s what keeps them relevant, for now, in presidential elections.
However, the Democrats have another plan to make the U.S. a one-party state. It’s called voter fraud. That’s why they are so eager and so vociferous in their support of eliminating the requirement in most states for meaningful voter identification. Federal judges appointed by Democratic Party presidents have been shooting down such requirements in state after state. It should be an absolute litmus test for Trump that no judicial appointments, at any level, be made without ensuring the judge is 100 percent behind the principle of voter integrity.
Media wishing to interview Joseph Farah, please contact [email protected].
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